A 1,000 mile endurance bike race is returning to Northwest Arkansas next year. The Arkansas High Country Race will start in Bentonville and offer cyclists the opportunity to explore the region and state on gravel backroads. Chuck Campbell is director of the race. He says it is split into a 250 mile regional loop and a one hundred mile statewide loop, both consisting of pre-established Adventure Cycling Association routes.
Chuck Campbell: So it goes all over the northwest part of Arkansas, all over the Ozarks, all over the Ouachita. To get that thousand miles in, we actually bump into Oklahoma a couple of times, and we bump into Missouri up at Seligman, north of you guys. So, most of it's in Arkansas, though. We started in 2019. So we've been going on for a while. How many years is that? That that would mean that ’26 will be the seventh year.
So with the thousand miles running around all over the state, we go through a lot of towns. And it was suggested early on, hey, wouldn't it be cool if you started in a different city every two years? The idea was, spend two years in a city, and that way, folks might race it the first year, get a feel for the course out of that town, and then maybe come back the next year and see if they can set a record or ride it even faster. So that's what we've been doing since 2020. We raced for two years in one city and then we moved. So we raced for two years in Fayetteville, and then we raced two years in Hot Springs. And we just finished two years in Russellville. So the logical progression then is to go back to the northwest part of the state.
Another aspect of the race is that we have the course broken up into three loops. So Adventure Cycling broke it into three loops when they published the route. So we have the northwest loop, and then we have the central loop, and then we have the south loop. So in 2021 we raced the northwest Loop. In ’22 and ’23, we raced the south loop out of Hot Springs. And for the last two years we've been racing the central loop out of Russellville. So the logical progression, it makes sense to go back to the northwest part of the state and race the northwest loop. So that's what we're going to do for two years.
Jack Travis: And what made Bentonville out of all the cities in northwest Arkansas. What made Bentonville the right host for 2026?
Campbell: They were the first folks that I called up there, and they didn't just say yes, they said yes. I mean, I've called cities before and and I've been doing events for a long time, and you call and, and say, hey, we got this idea we want to do this thing. And some people you talk to, their initial reaction is, well, I don't know. And then some people you talk to, their initial reaction is, yes. What do we have to do to make it happen? You know, so when I, when I called the city of Bentonville, that was their reaction. The first word out of Kaitlyn's mouth was yes. And then what do we have to do? That's one reason, I mean, they said yes.
Another reason that it's great is we'll be on that north end of the Greenway. So the race will use the Greenway, and it's kind of nice to have a long finish line along the Greenway. It gives people a finish where they can run a good speed, get out of the gnarly gravel stuff that we ride, most of the time. It leads to a fast finish. So finishing up there in Bentonville, most folks don't have to on the big race, but most folks will probably ride it clockwise so that they will finish coming up the Greenway.
That's another weird thing about our race. On the big race, you can race the course either direction Since it's a big old loop, you can go either direction and it makes makes interesting decisions because I think I can ride it faster clockwise. Well, why do you think so? And then somebody else might decide that they're going to race it counterclockwise. And they'll have reasons why they think it's faster. So this year we'll just wait and see which direction the folks want to race the big race, clockwise or counterclockwise.
Travis: Another interesting thing about the Arkansas High Country Race is that it's a self-supported race. Could you tell me what that means?
Campbell: This is bikepacking, so you take backpacking where you're carrying everything that you need, and you do it on a bicycle. So it's bikepacking. And so being self-supported, that means that we don't come out and do things for you on, you know, a lot of a lot of races. Oh, you roll into an aid station and they'll take care of you. Some races, you can even have a support crew out there. You roll up and they'll clean up your bike for you or do maintenance on your bike. They'll have food and drink and all that stuff. We don't do any of that. So it's self-supported. So you have to find everything that you need while you're out on the course. So you got to go to gas stations, you got to find a place to sleep, you might sleep out in the woods. You may find you a place to get under a roof. Sometimes you end up under a pavilion in a cemetery in the middle of the woods, all of that is all that factors into the planning for the race.
Travis: Interesting. And so people figure it out entirely themselves. Do people often bring, you said it's kind of like backpacking, do people bring tents and a lot of gear with them? Or I guess that's kind of the challenge, right? Is trying to figure out what you need and what you can sacrifice for weight.
Campbell: Yeah. You know, the guys that are racing really fast, if you can imagine this, they're doing a thousand miles in four days and some hours. So those guys that are racing like that, they're not taking a sleeping bag or a tent. They'll take a puffy jacket and some leggings and maybe a bivvy sack, and that's it.
Travis: Wow.
Campbell: And when they sleep, they're sleeping three hours, four hours, and then they're up and writing again. But the folks that are slower, you know, the back of the packers, when I raced it in 2019, I didn't carry a tent. I took a tarp, took my sleeping bag and a sleeping pad. And, I ended up not sleeping out very often. I don't think I ever set the tarp up, but it was nice to have as insurance. I slept in a dugout at a baseball park. I rented a hotel one night. Found places like that. Slept under a pavilion at a park in a town one time. But, yeah, some folks carry a tent. They'll take a full tent with them and do this thing.
Travis: Wow. That sounds like a real adventure. Like, not only an athletic challenge, but just a life changing experience, potentially.
Campbell: It is. And when we do this thing in October, you folks that live up there in the area, you got to come to the finish line. Because when you finish this thing, you've been by yourself for however many days, it took me eight days and some hours. And so I spent a good part of that eight days just by myself with my own thoughts. So as soon as you finish, all you want to do is sit there and tell stupid stories for an hour or two. It'll take you an hour or two to get all the stories out that have been building up, over this route. It'll take a couple hours to get them out.
Yeah. This event has been a life changer for some folks. There's a guy that quit his job and started making luggage for bicycles, bikepacking luggage. And he's got a very successful company doing that now. It was because he went on the race and he thought, ‘Oh, man, I could do better. I could make better luggage than what I've got when I'm seeing people carrying’. And so he went home and started doing it in his garage, and now he's got it now. Now he's making a living at it. There's a bicycle maker in northwest Arkansas. Same thing, 'Man, I could build a better bicycle than what I'm riding on this race’. So he went home and built a better bicycle, and now he's making a living doing it. He has a company building bicycles in northwest Arkansas. So very literally life changing for those guys. And I think for everybody that finishes it, they come out seeing the world differently. It's a big deal.
Travis: It sounds awesome. Where can people go for more information? As registration and launch date starts being announced?
Campbell: Go to Arkansashighcountry.com. And the routes are already available. So if you go there, you'll find a link that'll take you to the planning routes. We release the official route a couple of weeks before the race. Sometimes things happen, you know? So right now we have the planning routes out there, and 99% chance they'll. Those will be the exact race routes. There's information on the website about where to get the maps from Adventure Cycling Association. And if you go to the ACA website from our link, it'll give you a lot of information about adventure cycling and bikepacking and getting into the sport.
We're racing the northwest loop and it's only 250 miles. Just a little bitty race. So this could be an entry level race for somebody that's wanting to step up and do this. Maybe they've done some longer races before, but they've not done overnighters. This would be a great experience. Plan on doing it in three days or four days or five days even, this could be your first multi-day self-supported bikepacking race.
That was Chuck Campbell with the Arkansas High Country Race. You can visit ArkansasHighCountry.com for information about the event, including route plans and registration details.
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